About classic communication

The classics love it all. Our collective imagination, our cultural background, even our linguistic roots. When digging up and learning what Greek and Roman mythology means, we must consider, above all, the transmission through various sources, such as literature or art.

Beyond that, we must not disdain the material culture of the ancient Mediterranean world, that of Spain or islands like Sicily, which have been profusely sampled and analyzed in this blog. It is necessary to explore how mythology took root in Greek and Roman culture and how it was articulated in contemporary social, economic, political or military life. Translations or originals should be read carefully if possible. It is necessary to detect iconographic evidence of various paintings, which can be located in architectural details, sculptures or the myriad of vases spread by the legacy of Greeks and Latins.

Mythology has been studied for a long time. The ancient mythographers began, and numerous scholars, attracted by the characteristics of the classics, such as Burkert, Freud, Propp, Levi-Strauss, Chaucer or Shakespeare, have collected their legacy. Ancient texts (from Homer's Iliad and Odyssey to the Homeric hymns to the gods, through Greek tragedy and comedy, Ovid's Metamorphoses or Virgil's Aeneid) help unravel the myth. A living myth.

Sicily and the classics

For those of us who love the classical world, being able to visit the island of Sicily is a privilege. For starters, this is the largest island in the Mediterranean. The proximity of Naples and its charm, three kilometers from the Strait of Messina, the influx of the Apennines and the oregon and the splashes of the Tyrrhenian Sea and the Ionian Sea enveloped Sicily with a special snowflake.

Sicily has not always been called Sicily. The Latins called it Trinacria, that is, triangular. Where does the name of Sicily come from? Well, eureka, comes from the Greeks, who called it Sikelia because the original tribe were the satellites. Sicily is like a galaxy with numerous planets in the form of polyteinic islands, such as agates, Eolias, Pelágiques, Ustica and Pantelleria.

Peculiarly, despite being an island, Sicily is the largest region in Italy. 25,711 square kilometers are not insignificant, precisely! In addition, it is the second most densely populated island in the Mare Nostrum, behind Malta (geographically within the archipelago of Sicily and politically united in 1798). Five million Sicilians are many! The capital, Palermo, is the fifth most populous in Italy; Catania is the tenth. A clear similarity with Catalonia: in Sicily, Italian and Sicilian are spoken.

The impact of the classics is very clear in Sicily, as in the Roman Villa of the Casale. Much later, Sicily acted as an independent or immixed kingdom in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, and then belonged to the Spanish monarchy. The resignation of Philip V as a result of the Treaty of Utrecht closed this phase. Because the landowners and the landowners dominated the island, the Mafia arose in the eighteenth century, an organization of peasants who rebelled clandestinely against landowners. Curious island evolution, like technological evolution, analyzed by XXVI Cable and Broadband Catalonia Congress (CECABLE, 2022). Come in!